The word "bell" shows up in the middle of embellish, and bells are something that decorate, or embellish something, making it more attractive. If you embellish speech, though, it can get ugly if you add a lot of details that aren't true.
Embellish often has the positive meaning of adding something to make it more handsome or beautifully decorated. But, while adding bells to something looks great at first, after a couple of hours of bells ringing in the ears, what was meant to embellish and beautify can get annoying. That's what can happen when you embellish by adding too many false or exaggerated details to a story. Embellishing with true, colorful details and vivid descriptions is what can really enhance the beauty of a story.
Definitions of embellish
verb
make more attractive by adding ornament, color, etc.
- ornament
be an ornament to
see moresee less- types:
- show 54 types...
- hide 54 types...
- wreathe
decorate or deck with wreaths
- beset, encrust, incrust
decorate or cover lavishly (as with gems)
- braid
decorate with braids or ribbons
- broider, embroider
decorate with needlework
- stick
cover and decorate with objects that pierce the surface
- illustrate
supply with illustrations
- garland
adorn with bands of flowers or leaves
- fledge, flight
decorate with feathers
- bespangle, spangle
decorate with spangles
- foliate
decorate with leaves
- flag
decorate with flags
- bard, barde, caparison, dress up
put a caparison on
- bead
decorate by sewing beads onto
- pipe
trim with piping
- applique
sew on as a decoration
- gild the lily, paint the lily
adorn unnecessarily (something that is already beautiful)
- vermiculate
decorate with wavy or winding lines
- smock
embellish by sewing in straight lines crossing each other diagonally
- hang
decorate or furnish with something suspended
- prank
dress or decorate showily or gaudily
- tinsel
adorn with tinsel
- tart up
decorate in a cheap and flashy way
- stucco
decorate with stucco work
- redecorate
redo the decoration of an apartment or house
- panel
decorate with panels
- bejewel, jewel
adorn or decorate with precious stones
- filet, fillet
decorate with a lace of geometric designs
- scallop
decorate an edge with scallops
- bedizen
decorate tastelessly
- dress ship
decorate a ship with flags
- dress, garnish, trim
decorate (food), as with parsley or other ornamental foods
- trim
decorate, as with ornaments
- bedeck, bedight, deck
decorate
- festoon
decorate with strings of flowers
- enamel
coat, inlay, or surface with enamel
- inlay
decorate the surface of by inserting wood, stone, and metal
- lacquer
coat with lacquer
- begild, engild, gild
decorate with, or as if with, gold leaf or liquid gold
- illuminate
add embellishments and paintings to (medieval manuscripts)
- blazon, emblazon
decorate with heraldic arms
- color, colour, emblazon
decorate with colors
- fringe
adorn with a fringe
- fret
decorate with an interlaced design
- landscape
embellish with plants
- monogram
mark, print, or embroider with one’s initials or other letters
- fa*ggot, fa*got
ornament or join (fabric) by fa*ggot stitch
- purl
embroider with gold or silver thread
- purl
edge or border with gold or silver embroidery
- plume
deck with a plume
- hatch
inlay with narrow strips or lines of a different substance such as gold or silver, for the purpose of decorating
- damascene
inlay metal with gold and silver
- japan
coat with a lacquer, as done in Japan
- miniate, rubricate
decorate (manuscripts) with letters painted red
- miniate
paint with red lead or vermilion
- ornament
verb
make more beautiful
see moresee less- Antonyms:
- uglify
make ugly
- types:
- show 24 types...
- hide 24 types...
- groom, neaten
care for one's external appearance
- curry, dress, groom
give a neat appearance to
- dress up, window-dress
make something appear superficially attractive
- slick up, smarten up, spiff up, spruce, spruce up, titivate, tittivate
make neat, smart, or trim
- polish, shine, smooth, smoothen
make (a surface) shine
- become, suit
enhance the appearance of
- clean, cleanse
clean one's body or parts thereof, as by washing
- shave
remove body hair with a razor
- comb, comb out, disentangle
smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb
- arrange, coif, coiffe, coiffure, do, dress, set
arrange attractively
- gel, mousse
apply a styling gel to
- pomade
apply pomade to (hair)
- clean up
make oneself clean, presentable or neat
- make up
apply make-up or cosmetics to one's face to appear prettier
- manicure
care for (one's hand) by cutting and shaping the nails, etc.
- barber
perform the services of a barber: cut the hair and/or beard of
- pedicure
care for one's feet by cutting and shaping the nails, etc.
- do up, doll up, glam up, pretty up
use special care in dressing, making-up, etc.
- slick up, smarten up, spruce, spruce up
dress and groom with particular care, as for a special occasion
- perfume, scent
apply perfume to
- Simonise, Simonize
polish with wax
- sleek, slick
make slick or smooth
- buff, burnish, furbish
polish and make shiny
- gloss
give a shine or gloss to, usually by rubbing
- type of:
- ameliorate, amend, better, improve, meliorate
make better
- uglify
verb
add details to
- synonyms:aggrandise, aggrandize, blow up, dramatise, dramatize, embroider, lard, pad
see moresee less- types:
- glorify
cause to seem more splendid
- type of:
- amplify, exaggerate, hyperbolise, hyperbolize, magnify, overdraw, overstate
to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth
- glorify
verb
be beautiful to look at
Word Family
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